Teal Gives Back: Rebranding for impact

Issues

Services

Brand Strategy

Visual Identity

Gender Justice was Teal's first recipient of our Teal Gives Back program in celebration of our tenth anniversary. Gender Justice seeks to create a world in which no one is hindered because of their gender or gender expression. As a rapidly-evolving organization, Gender Justice found itself at a new stage of organizational growth and were working to refine their mission focus and branding. While they are clear that their organization does "impact" work focused on broader systemic change and not a legal services organization, their brand and communications weren't sending that message effectively. In order to bring clarity to their brand, Gender Justice turned to Teal.

Research & Discovery

Moving Gender Justice forward while protecting brand equity

Teal began the discovery process by evaluating Gender Justice’s existing strategic research, which included a detailed brand map, along with interviews and survey responses from a cross-section of Gender Justice staff, board, partners, peers and donors. The core of our discovery phase was an in-depth brand workshop conducted with key Gender Justice stakeholders.

In the virtual workshop, we collaborated with the client team to zero-in on the brand purpose, brand equity, the unique value proposition, and unique selling point, among other details. Exercises included “Resolving Tensions”, in which we came to consensus on various tensions in both internal and external perception of the brand; “Word Mapping”, in which we used words pulled from the discovery phase to zero in on Gender Justice core values, program values, and tonal values; and “Symbol Brainstorming”, where we generated abstract and literal symbol concepts using the previously generated words.

Teal then began work on the core elements of the new Gender Justice brand. Focusing in on themes of intersectionality, disruption, and togetherness we were able to design a framework that reflects who Gender Justice is now, where they've been, and where they're going.

Our first brand concept sought to balance Gender Justice’s existing legal expertise with their role as a change agent in the gender space. While retaining brand equity was a key goal, the new brand conveys a sense of progressive, forward motion, and a bit of an edge.

The second brand concept is all about the overlapping nature of the work Gender Justice does. Overlapping shapes convey intersectionality, and the coming together of disparate elements to form a stronger, cohesive whole.

As summer approaches, we’re looking forward to more collaboration with the Gender Justice team. The brand concepts are currently being reviewed by board members, and with their input we’ll be working to evolve and refine the brand, and unveil the new Gender Justice look to the world!

The Teal Team has been great to work with as we've moved forward with some major projects – a 'brand refresh' and new website build. We have appreciated the time, care, and insight they put into working through this process, as well as their willingness to listen to and apply our feedback at every stage.